Massachusetts to crack down on excessively high EBT card balances

After an inquiry by a Republican State Representative from Taunton about exorbitant EBT card accounts, the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance announced new state rules to crack down on excessively high balances.

After an inquiry by a Republican State Representative from Taunton about exorbitant EBT card accounts, the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance announced new state rules to crack down on excessively high balances.

A day after State Rep. Shaunna O’Connell, R-Taunton, obtained information about the overly high EBT balances, the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) said it would expunge all state funded cash benefits that aren’t being used after 90 days. The DTA also said it would take EBT card balances accumulated through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — a welfare benefit limited to food purchases only — and put them “offline” after six months of inactivity.

DTA Commissioner Stacey Monahan said the moves build on her department’s 100-day action plan, which is aimed at saving money for taxpayers and protecting benefits for those who truly need them.

“I was given a mandate from the Governor to do a top-to-bottom review of the agency and make changes to improve the way we do business,” Monahan said. “The fact that some clients are accumulating high SNAP or cash balances is inconsistent with the department’s goal of helping vulnerable individuals meet their most basic and immediate needs, and that’s why we are taking this action.”

O’Connell said the DTA is only taking the measures, which she called “a joke,” after she paid $800 to receive public records about the high balances. O’Connell said she has been trying to receive the records for six months.

“The only reason we have this information is because I paid $800 to make it public,” O’Connell said. “Otherwise, nothing would be getting done right now.”

Asked what motivation recipients might have to hoard benefits, O’Connell said she was unsure why, but added that they were stealing from the system and that the law should punish those who do so.

“It’s a good question,” O’Connell said. “Clearly, to me, people are fraudulently getting into the system and this is part of the system and they are accumulating these balances. … They should be criminally charged for defrauding system and stealing taxpayer dollars. … It makes you wonder what other fraud or abuse could accumulate. People out there that are working to support their families can’t even comprehend how something like this could happen.”

Monahan said that the issue of high EBT card balance is not about fraud, but simply about ensuring taxes allocated for welfare programs are being used most effectively to help the most needy people. Often in high balance cases, she said, the recipients have misplaced their pin number or lost track of federal food supplement funds.

The records obtained by O’Connell on the EBT cards show that there are 37 welfare recipients that have state-funded cash balances of more than $1,500, including one with over $4,600 that has collected.

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In addition to that, the data shows that almost 1,800 recipients of federally funded SNAP benefits (which are also stored on EBT cards, and were formerly referred to as food stamps) have balances of more than $1,500 sitting in their account, instead of being used to buy groceries. One of them has more than $12,000 accumulated, while 45 have more than $5,000 stored up, the records show.

Monahan explained that the balance over $12,000 was that of a couple who are 90 and 93 years old. Out of all people who have a balance of $7,000 or more in their accounts, Monahan said, the average age of the recipient is 70.

“I don’t think in general it’s what typically considered a fraudulent population,” Monahan said. “The majority of the people we serve are elderly, disabled and children. It’s literally the most vulnerable population out there.”

Monahan said case management, as part of the new changes to EBT card monitoring announced on Wednesday, will help make sure these cases don’t happen anymore.

Monahan said that the state does not have any authority on how SNAP accounts are regulated, but she said her agency is now taking advantage of federal provisions that allow for accounts to be deactivated after six months. When it comes to the cash accounts, Monahan said, the state has more control and, for that reason, cash benefits that haven’t been used will be expunged after 90 days.

Monahan emphasized that SNAP funds can only be used to purchase food, and are meant as a supplement to other means. Monahan added that three quarters of SNAP and cash clients have just $10 or less in their accounts at the end of the month, and that the entire system serves 1/7th of the state, or 900,000 people in 550,000 households.

O’Connell, who has been very involved with welfare abuse issues since being elected in 2010, said that this particular issue first came to her attention about a half year ago when a Pittsfield store owner sent her a receipt showing that a customer’s EBT balance was $7,000.

“I just wondered how in the world could someone on public assistance accumulate a 7,000 balance,” O’Connell said. “Clearly they don’t need the money if they are accumulating a balance.”

Matthew Kitsos, a spokesperson for the DTA, explained that a standing policy was already in place that expunged state cash benefits after 12 months of inactivity. The new regulations will change that period to 90 days, and the regulations will also close EBT cash balances that exceed $2,500, which was the standing cash limit.

“We are closing or have actually closed the six cases who were over the asset limit of $2,500,” Kitsos said on Wednesday.

Also, under the new policy that was announced by DTA, clients with balances higher than $1,500 will be notified and instructed to contact the department if they no longer require benefits.

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Kitsos explained that SNAP funds (which can only be used for food) can not similarly be expunged, but that the new policy adopted by the DTA allows the agency to make the funds inaccessible to the recipient, before the client has an opportunity to be reinstated. The new rules also call for DTA caseworkers to notify all SNAP clients with balances greater than $5,000, and for a case review system to ensure they are still in need of the benefits and are not experiencing any barriers to access.

“We are definitely doing what’s available to us within the law,” said Kitsos said.

However, O’Connell said she is not impressed with the DTA’s work to crack down on the high EBT card balances.

“Those reforms are a joke,” O’Connell said. “They are still letting people accumulate (SNAP) balances of up to $5,000 before they are even going to do anything about it. I’d like to know how many hard working families out there have $5000 laying around.”